back to article Boffins claim machines now beat humans at face-matching

A pair of Hong Kong researchers is claiming a first, developing software that can identify people from photographs better than humans can. Their claim, in this Arxiv paper, is based on the LWF – Labelled Faces in the Wild – benchmark. That benchmark comprises 13,000 photos of 6,000 public figures, with both humans and …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. M Gale

    More simply: GaussianFace normalises each pic into a 150x120 pixel image, and uses five landmarks – two eyes, the nose, and the corners of the mouth – as the basis for the image transform. It then creates 25 x 25 overlapping tiles in the image, and captures a vector of each patch.

    This sounds very much like a tweaked version of Eigenfaces.

    Hey, if it works, hats off to them. After doing the Computer Vision and AI option back in uni, I'd best describe the algorithms involved in facial recognition as "bloody complex".

    1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Yup, Eigenfaces was what I thought of, too. I haven't read the paper, though, and I admit that my eyes start to cross when I get into things like Gaussian processes. I know they're just a generalization of normal distributions to infinite dimensions but still...

  2. Adam 1

    One thing's for sure, they are not using this for face matching on my Nexus 5.

  3. Don Jefe

    Limited Inaccuracy is Sostly Mymbolic

    You'll know they're really onto something when they can get the computer drunk and still have the same successful recognition rate. Until then I've got them beat!

    1. Tom 7

      Re: Limited Inaccuracy is Sostly Mymbolic

      Could that prevent beer googles?

      Not that that would necessarily be a good thing.

  4. Gene Cash Silver badge
    Pint

    Better than this human, for certain

    I didn't know I was blind as a bat and seriously needed glasses until I was 15, so I never learned to distinguish between all the beige blobs. I then found out why the teacher did all those funny motions in front of the big green rectangle, she was writing things!

    Everyone looks "vaguely familiar" to me and I need about 2 weeks to learn to recognize someone.

    1. Gray Ham Bronze badge
      Pint

      Re: Better than this human, for certain

      If there's a version that helps me to remember someone's name, that'd be even more useful

      1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
        Big Brother

        Re: Better than this human, for certain

        "If there's a version that helps me to remember someone's name, that'd be even more useful"

        That will be the Public Security Service upgrade.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Better than this human, for certain

        I think we have just discovered a new app, however,, it means glassholes will no longer need PAs to shepherd them around social gatherings.

      3. Chris 244

        Re: Gary Ham

        Strangely enough, I remember names better after I've had one or two of your icons!

    2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: Better than this human, for certain

      I need about 2 weeks to learn to recognize someone.

      Same for me, and I know it's about two weeks based on how long it takes me to be able to identify my students by sight when I teach a class.

      For me, other identity markers are critical - I can't remember their names or faces until they start handing in work and speaking in class.

      Even with people I've known for a while, sometimes I can't identify them until they say something.

  5. Crisp

    How is it at arse matching?

    I need to know for a friend.

  6. A J Stiles

    Abstract Mathematics

    I find this interesting, but for a different reason.

    Face recognition is just a special case of shape recognition. And the abstract mathematics underlying shape recognition is the same as the abstract mathematics underlying decompilation -- "this vertex belongs to this shape" is isomorphic with "this instruction belongs to this loop".

    It surely can't be long now before someone comes up with a program that, given a compiled binary, produces some Source Code that will compile to the same binary. That is going to be the game-changer .....

    1. DragonLord

      Re: Abstract Mathematics

      isn't that what a decompiler's for?

      It doesn't produce pretty code, but it does do what you just asked for.

    2. Adam 1

      Re: Abstract Mathematics

      It depends what you mean by source. Compiled executables are pretty much source code written in assembler. Then you have the JIT compiled stuff like Java or MSIL produced by .NET.

      You actually have to go through reasonable effort to obfuscate your code during the build process if avoiding others copying the logic is important to you.

      But in most applications the GUI is only a small (relatively speaking) component of the application. I am not sure that the suggested approach would do a great job at reversing out the business objects or DAL or the logic contained in any stored procedures.

      Otherwise you are basically looking at a screen recorder.

  7. Nick 6

    And this is why...

    I editted my [redacted] photo before submitting the application to [redacted]. The photo is definitely "me" to a human looking at it, but the algorithm measuring distances between facial features will not be able to match, depending on tolerances.

    They rejected the first one, with Piers Morgan halloween mask on.

  8. Graham Marsden
    Big Brother

    And soon...

    ... large sunglasses and face masks and baseball caps will become illegal because they might be used by terrorists to hide their identity...

  9. breakfast Silver badge

    Serious real world applications

    Clearly it's not enough that computers can beat the world's best humans at Chess, now they're moving on to "Guess Who?"

    Not to mention the risk of Where's Wally books becoming a solved problem.

    This is dangerous technology, I hope they know what they are doing.

    1. breakfast Silver badge

      Re: Serious real world applications

      Hmmm... I appear to have unwittingly referenced the joke in Monday's XKCD there. I only read it afterwards, though, so I'm still a special and unique snowflake, honest.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    How long...

    ...before the computer decides whether it fancies you?

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like